J.F.K.'s snazzy new T-4 brings style back to New York's international gateway

Dingy. Deluged. Decrepit. The International Arrivals Building at New York City's John F. Kennedy Airport was so rundown by the 1990s that arriving passengers, not a few of them escaping wretched Third World environments, probably wondered if they had made some cosmic mistake. The IAB was the crown jewel of jet-set travel when it opened in what was then Idlewild Airport in 1957, but three decades later, the country's most important global gateway was one of the worst. Experienced flyers preferred Newark. In New Jersey.

It may be time to come back. In June the airport christened a sparkling, soaring and...